Year:
1998
Studio:
Strand Releasing/Memfis Film
Movie:
4/5
DVD:
0/5
Movie
I remember when I first saw this film on cable I thought it was
amazingly boring. Part of the problem is that this Swedish film is
subtitled and I wasn't quite paying enough attention to read
everything. This time I actually paid attention and with a different
mindset I liked this film quite a bit.
Show Me Love (the American title, original title is Fucking
Åmål which
refers to the dead-end boring town of Åmål) is a teenage
coming of
age/drama/romance about two girls. Agnes (Rebecka Lijeberg) is the
social outcast with no friends. She is intensely infatuated with Elin
(Alexandra Dahlström), the pretty blonde popular girl
with the reputation.
On a dare,
Elin kisses Agnes and embarasses her. She feels bad about it
and goes back to apologize. They get to talking and maybe there's
something there. But Elin is scared and finds a boyfriend and basically
has to think about who she is and what she wants to do. Meanwhile Agnes
is heartbroken and mad and things go from bad to worse when the whole
school finds out that she's a lesbian. |
Cast
Noticeably, both girls are the right about the age of their roles:
Alexandra was like 13 and Rebecka was like 15 and the characters were
like that age too. That's a bit young for this type of movie and in the
US they would have been late high school students. They both do a
fairly good job.
DVD
Theatrical trailer is the only extra.
Recommendations
It's a slow moving movie. Sort of a romance/drama and it has a nice
ending. Keeping in mind that it's a foreign film and not designed for
American culture, it's a good movie and I think if you want to see it
you'd enjoy it. |